


Saber's Heart is Luigi's Mansion

by cesau



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16368038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cesau/pseuds/cesau
Summary: True love is a beautiful thing.





	Saber's Heart is Luigi's Mansion

The mercenary fortress is a buoy in the sea of sand that is the desert, and at times as he watches the shifting of the dunes Saber swears he feels the walls of stone beneath him sway in time. The effect is more pronounced in the dead quiet of night, and Saber recently has taken to climbing the towers of the fort in the late hours. The view on high is otherwordly.

He looks out and inward and he's struck at once with the distinct image of a thing whose origin he can't recall: memory, perhaps, or only his mind's fanciful production. The dunes become waves, the sands turn to sea. The fortress is an old ship, and its grizzled captain sits atop the crow's nest lashed by biting wind, surveying all the empty which surrounds him. The ship is his work, his home, his life. It is his heart, and he is alone.

And that, of course, is where the image falls away because if it _is_ memory, the past remains there. Saber, who once fashioned himself a solitary sort and loathed the prospect and the vulnerability of bonds, has inexplicably softened. _Old age_ , he thinks to himself with a puzzled contentment. Or at times, he'll smile and think of the queen—the lass, really, she'll always be the lass—and wonder if it's possible that these things are contagious. Celica's heart knows no bounds, and that unconditional acceptance of all the Earth Mother's creation has always confounded him, but in it lies an intrinsic, intoxicating freedom.

Any of these could account for his change, but each possibility is overpowered by the very simple truth: Saber could not believe any of these things if it were not for the man beside him—he barely believes this man is real. Tonight, as always, Luigi sits at his side.

Luigi's appearance in Valentia is recognized as a phenomenon, but while the word captures the gravity of his presence it fails to account for the spirit of the man, and Saber has privately come to think of it as a miracle instead—Luigi is not some strange but naturally occurring thing, he is divine providence. Saber has seen the gods and however great their capacity for madness or cruelty, the stories of their grace mustn't have sprung forth from the void. Some essence of them remains in this world, and it comes to him in this miraculous realization: first, that he has been alone for much of his life, and second, that he no longer is.

Saber climbs the tower of the fortress every night and has a few moments of silence, and then, soft as a shadow and scarcely any louder, he feels the presence of the strange traveler beside him. Saber and Luigi sit quietly, inches apart, stealing glances rarely but taken more often simply in their _being_.

Saber does steal a glance tonight at Luigi and is enraptured at once by his wide eyes, staring far off to the distance with the strangest light. Luigi is an expressive man, the contours of his face drawn of exaggerated features which lend him a startling, preternatural beauty—but his eyes are the lure, sparkling ocean blue. Saber forces himself to look away, heedful of his own desire. He turns his gaze upward, instead, to lose himself in the limitless expanse of night sky.

The stars are few tonight, and the blackness seems to form a blanket above them. As warmth blooms within him, Saber tries to fool himself it comes from above, that the beauty of the heavens surpasses any earthly thing. Those few precious stars are diamonds in the sky and he could pluck them, one by one, box them up and keep the shine for himself, a hidden treasure. He's never kept a thing to himself. He feels now he must hoard it all, and the need of it frightens him.

It's new, this need, but he's conquered it quickly in that he's learned to suppress it. But in these quiet moments, isolated, it thrums beneath his skin and beats in his chest and grows and grows until it threatens to burst forth from his hands, his mouth, his entire being until it has covered him completely and all that remains of him is raw, pulsating desire. Away from Luigi it is calm, but with proximity comes yearning.

From the start there has been a subtle magnetism between them like the distance between the moon and the sea, always pushing and pulling and never touching, as if that is only the way of it. It seems if he were to break it he may as well overturn the laws of nature, burn the forest or dam the rivers—bring its whole relentless beauty to a crashing halt, and for what? To satisfy some base need within himself, as he's always done, and he's never once questioned it but then the stakes have never been so great. Never touching, never touching.

He'd held his hand once. It was soft, of course. Uncalloused despite his labor. Luigi kept them gloved. For his work, he'd said, and then admitted more shyly that really, it was more because his brother had always done. He is gentle thing and easily led. Saber, taken naturally to the role, has never found it quite so distasteful. Luigi is made of a softness which calls for molding but the shape of him is enough as it is; if Saber were to press against him he wishes to leave no scar but to see him returned to his imperfect self. The effect of this image is captivating, the possibility paralyzing.

Despite himself, he wants. Damn him, but he _wants_.

“You keep following me up here, a guy's bound to get ideas,” he says, lightly but then it's only a mask and as surely as he feels the need he knows it creeps through his voice in gravelly undertones. Luigi turns to him, turns those wide eyes to him, and says nothing. He tilts his head and he stares. Saber shivers, less from the nip of the chill Wyrmstym air than the effect of having that gaze trained upon him; understanding without words is strung taut between them. One motion and the string will turn to stream will turn to torrent and he will be lost in the ocean of it.

What is he meant to say? _You don't understand_ —but it would be a lie. _I can't lose you_ —but if he leaves now, his loss is assured. _I've never felt this way_ —but that's only fear, and what sorry manner of excuse has that ever made?

“You're like nothing else,” he mutters finally, some mixture of everything he means and nothing he wants to say. He anticipates failure, but Luigi smiles softly. Of course he does, because he's that sort of man.

“It's only-a me-a, Luigi,” he says, and he holds out his hand. Nothing to fear. Only plain, simple truth.

Saber laughs, lets the sound rise to the black sky and bounce between the precious stars and crash to the shifting sands and it rings out all around them and fills every empty pocket of night until Saber himself is full to bursting. He is not overtaken but undone, and he is rebuilt of a newfound freedom. He takes Luigi's hand and feels his warmth through the glove.

“Yea,” he says. “I know.”

They mack lips, and it is glorious.

**Author's Note:**

> #plumbercenary


End file.
